


Faith Will Be My Armor

by hrhrionastar



Category: Legend of the Seeker
Genre: Episode: s02e17 Vengeance, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-06
Updated: 2011-11-06
Packaged: 2017-10-25 18:37:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,100
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/273484
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hrhrionastar/pseuds/hrhrionastar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Darken's parents are both in the Underworld. Some reunions go better than others.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Faith Will Be My Armor

**Author's Note:**

> Note: My answer to [brontefanatic](http://brontefanatic.livejournal.com/)'s question about what Darken's mother might have been thinking during the meeting between Darken and Panis at the end of _Vengeance_.

The Underworld glittered with flickering green fires that gave light, but no warmth.

Even the sand was dry and cool between Nila Rahl's toes. Not like the blistering heat of the deserts at home.

She stood waiting. Emerald light played over the sharp bones of her face.

Two figures stood together some distance away. Nila had no eyes for the older man, but her gaze rested hungrily on the younger one. 'The Keeper's right hand,' some said. The greatest tyrant the world had ever known. Her son.

Darken Rahl waited while the old man rose to his feet. There was a rustling of red velvet, and he embraced his father.

Darken pulled away to ask Panis Rahl some low-voiced question. Nila could have heard it, if she concentrated, but it felt like an invasion of their privacy.

Besides, she didn't have to hear the words—the raw need on her son's face told her all she needed to know.

Panis said something. Darken did not flinch, but his eyes lost a little of their sparkle.

Nila's lips thinned.

Darken strode away, toward where Nila waited. He didn't see her yet.

She spared the man who had been her husband one utterly neutral look before dismissing him from her mind.

He stood alone and forlorn on the sands.

Nila wondered what Panis saw in their son. Himself, probably. That was all he'd ever seen.

She thought it must be like walking around half-blind. But then, she hadn't done so much better.

She would have given anything to guide her son's first steps.

She'd never meant to abandon him, but that was what her death so soon after his birth amounted to.

"Mother," Darken said.

He paused several paces from her.

He was frowning. Did he see those few steps as an impossible gulf?

Or was it bemusement, because she was the only other clothed spirit in the Underworld? Although her light silk robes were not red but green, in deference to the Father.

At least Darken had recognized her.

Nila closed the distance at a run and threw her arms around him.

He accepted the embrace, but didn't return it.

At last, she pulled reluctantly away so as to look into eyes almost like her own. His were blue where hers were gray, but they were framed by the same long, delicate lashes.

Nila stroked his cheek—a gesture part affection and part possessive pride. He was hers, and she was with him at last.

"What are you doing here?" Darken asked coolly.

"I wanted to see you."

At this, his lips tightened. "Why? And why now? When I first came here—"

"I wanted to greet you," Nila interrupted quickly. "But—there are rules."

Rules that she was bending even now. If she believed in the stark contrast of good and evil, Creator and Keeper, that her son had been raised to regard as the only truth, she never could have done it.

The concept still seemed alien to her, after a decade of marriage and a lifetime of watching over Darken. His lifetime.

Death was necessary. It came to everyone. Nonetheless, Nila would have given Darken all her years if she could have.

She tilted her head, watching him.

Darken glared back, a little uncertainly. She was a stranger to him, of course. That was her greatest regret.

And he would not willingly trust a member of his own family. She had Panis to thank for that, too. Not to mention the Wizard.

Nila narrowed her second sight, as easily as flexing her fingers. Yes, there it was: the coiled wariness, the rigidly controlled fury, the strength born of fear and desperation. Loneliness like a gaping wound in his spirit. And bitter self-loathing underlying it all.

Scars she had helped give him, if only by her absence. Scars she could not heal.

Nila blinked, refocusing on his smoother surface appearance. He was very handsome. That face had broken hearts, she knew.

"Aren't you afraid of me?" Darken broke the silence. Nila heard his unspoken thought: _like my father is._

She laughed, shocking her son—and all the poor souls who were here because they believed the Father had no mercy, and so He had none…for them.

"Afraid of you?" Nila repeated incredulously. She touched Darken's chest, worming her fingers under the curve of his vest so that she might touch him skin to skin for the first time since they'd taken him from her arms as an infant. "As well fear my own heart."

Darken closed his fingers on Nila's wrist. She waited, raising her eyebrows. Daring him to trust her.

Suddenly he smiled, turned her hand over and kissed her palm.

"I presume you enjoy the Creator's favor," he said after a moment. His eyes were lit with an emotion she couldn't interpret. Surely not—jealousy? "Why no moral outrage?"

Nila sighed. He still didn't understand. "You are my son," she said patiently. "I can love you. I can't judge you."

He would have to look elsewhere for recriminations.

By unspoken agreement, mother and son both glanced back to where Darken had left Panis on the shifting sands. He was gone now, one of many suffering souls.

"I was never what he wanted," Darken said. His face was utterly without expression.

That closed, despairing look frightened Nila where his anger had not.

She caught his arm and pulled herself up onto her toes to kiss his cheek.

He looked down at her in mingled confusion and cautious affection.

"And what, Darken, do _you_ want?" Nila asked.

It was a simple question, but, watching Darken grow introspective, Nila wondered if anyone had ever bothered to ask him what he wanted before. Especially someone who sincerely wanted to know.

She waited.

"I want," Darken said at last, "to live again."

Nila gave him an encouraging smile.

It was impossible to utterly outwit the Mother or the Father. On the other hand, the D'Haran religion simplified them to the Creator and the Keeper, who possessed more power than wisdom.

And if anyone could win back to life and glory from the Underworld, it was Darken.

She wished she could give him the power of her faith. She had found it a great comfort in death as well as in life.

"May the Mother watch over you," she whispered.

Darken raised his eyebrows skeptically.

Perhaps D'Hara was in his spirit as well as his blood.

No matter.

Nila embraced her son. This time he put his arms around her, too.

She spoke softly into his ear. "I believe in you, Darken."

Always.


End file.
